


Batrachophobia versus Saliggariphobia

by chaosmanor



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Fic Exchange, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Phobias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-01
Updated: 2007-08-01
Packaged: 2017-11-20 23:18:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/590797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosmanor/pseuds/chaosmanor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some fears, and some friends, are irrational</p>
            </blockquote>





	Batrachophobia versus Saliggariphobia

**Author's Note:**

> Written for niennas-dreams as part of the Anglicandoorways fic exchange. Betaed by crimson_bride. 
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred, or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission.

It took an hour, but Orlando eventually conceded defeat. “All right,” he said grudgingly. “I give in. I’m cold; can we go somewhere warm now?”

When Viggo turned his head sideways, a big fat raindrop slid down his nose, then another one. He grinned and shook his head like a dog, spattering water around him. “Sure,” he said. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

They both burst out laughing at this, the sort of mad laughter that came from working together for far too long without a break, and Orlando said, “Oh, fuck off, wanker.”

Viggo punched Orlando in what was probably intended to be an affectionate manner, but there was a solid knuckle in the middle, and Orlando knew he was going to bruise. He resisted the urge to rub at his bicep, aware that he deserved the thump, after the whole “car full of frogs” incident that week.

He wouldn’t have agreed to come camping with Viggo at all if the mad bastard hadn’t scrawled ‘truce’ over Orlando’s mirror in the Cuntebago with a borrowed lipstick on Friday afternoon. ‘Truce’ was good. ‘Truce’ meant a Saturday pre-dawn argument on the road outside Viggo’s place over who was going to drive, followed by a three-hour drive north of Wellington, fuelled by a huge flask of black paint-stripper masquerading as coffee provided by Viggo.

They’d eaten slabs of stale cake and mushy pears at a lookout near Napier, while the rain-clouds had rolled in over the ocean, then alternated between singing loudly to some country and western crap that Viggo had on CD, and smoking each other’s cigarettes, while Orlando drove and Viggo navigated, back into the mountains behind Napier, deep into a lush green forest.

The road had been sealed, and then unsealed and graded, then no more than a track, and they’d left the jeep and hiked deeper into the forest on foot in the rain.

The rain had been fine while the hike into the valley had kept Orlando warm, merely making the forest floor slick with moss and mud, so that they slid and slithered down between the rocks into a dense cycad thicket, towered over by tawa and kamahi trees.

There they’d tossed their packs under a cycad in the hope the food would stay dry, and Viggo had sat in the mud, doing some weird meditation-nature thing. They’d been sitting there, rain pouring through the tree canopy, for long enough that there was no part of Orlando that was dry now; not his socks, not his boxers.

There was rain in his ears and mouth, in his belly-button, in his fucking crotch, and he was over whatever it was Viggo wanted him to experience. At first it had been neat, listening to the bird song returning, watching the light shift slowly. It had stopped raining, but the water hadn’t stopped falling from the tree canopy. Orlando was hungry and cold, and he wanted Viggo to fix it.

He must have looked petulant, because Viggo made ‘diddums’ noises and flicked his bottom lip with one fingertip.

“So?” Orlando said. “Where’s the warm dry place we’re going to?”

“There isn’t one,” Viggo said cheerfully. “This is it. We could have a go at pitching the tent, but I think if we did, it would get just as wet on the inside as the outside. I was going to wash some of this mud off and have a look around.”

“Hot water?” Orlando said wistfully.

“Not a chance,” Viggo said. “Not until we unpack the spirit stove later; then you can have one of your interminable cups of tea.”

Viggo stood up and held out his hand to pull Orlando to his feet. “Hah!” Orlando said as Viggo hauled him up. “That’s a bit much coming from a man who brought two litres of coffee with us. So where’s the stream or whatever that we’re going to wash in?”

“Dunno,” Viggo said. “I just figured that it couldn’t possibly be raining as much as this without there being a stream.”

They crashed around the valley for a while, clambering between huge cycads, through dense patches of ferns, before stumbling onto a narrow but fast-flowing stream that tumbled over rocks and under tree roots.

“Remember, don’t drink the water,” Viggo said as he unbuttoned his plaid shirt.

“Yeah, I know,” Orlando said, peeling his own soaked T-shirt over his head and dropping the sodden heap onto a moss-covered rock. “Giardia is not my friend. Crypto is not my friend. Think we’ve all got that one sorted.”

It was Billy who had fallen victim to cryptosporidiosis first; then Viggo himself had had a bout of it. The interval between the first crippling episode of diarrhoea and when the metronidazole started working had taught all of them to boil any water they drank, no matter how clean the stream looked.

Orlando’s boots squelched when he unlaced them, and his socks were soaked too, so he pushed his socks into his boots and left them beside the rock, and peeled off his jeans and boxers.

Viggo was kneeling naked in the stream already, singing lustily in Danish, and Orlando knew better than to ask what the song was, not after the excruciatingly boring lecture Viggo had given him last time. For an interesting guy, Viggo could be mind-numbingly dull at times, obsessing over impossible details.

Close examination of the stream revealed nothing horrible in it, and the water didn’t feel too cold, which was testimony to exactly how cold Orlando was. He crouched down in water that had been up to his knees and began to rinse the mud off his arms.

His arms were scratched by the cycads, and when Orlando surreptitiously checked his bicep, there was a small red mark that would be exactly the same size as Viggo’s knuckle, he was sure.

“Feeling better?” Viggo said as he waded past Orlando.

“Still cold and wet,” Orlando pointed out, and he realised that he had made a tactical mistake and let Viggo get between him and his clothes. There was ‘truce’ and there was the realisation that Viggo had grabbed his own clothes and both pairs of boots and taken off into the forest.

“Arsehole!” Orlando shouted, and he snatched up Viggo’s boxers from where Viggo had dropped them and tossed them into the ferns, then set off at what was supposed to be a run after Viggo.

It took four long strides into the forest before Orlando worked out that running naked through cycads was for losers and people with the sort of dense body hair that a gorilla had. Smooth-skinned people did much better at walking carefully, holding the razor-sharp fronds away from their genitals, all the way back to where their clothes were.

Then there was the issue of insects. On the whole, Orlando got along with insects. He admired ants, thought bees and wasps had cool lives, and was careful not to step on cockroaches. They all had legs: he felt he could form some kind of bond with a creature with legs. Things without legs gave him the creeps, slithering and slipping and sliming around, all wet and squishy, and he found himself peering carefully through the undergrowth, looking for snails. He’d not met a gastropod yet that didn’t make him want to scream. New Zealand snails were really big and icky, and the thought of standing on one barefoot, and having it crunch and then ooze up between his toes, was almost enough to make him sick.

It was a slow process, each step requiring frond-removal, then close inspection of the ground for things that had no legs, but Orlando made it the twenty feet or so back to the creek.

Pulling wet clothes on over cold wet skin wasn’t easy, but he managed, and then he began the slow process of walking back. Never mind, it would give him time to work out what to do to Viggo when he got there. Unfortunately he didn’t find any frogs on the forest floor, or anything amphibious at all, so he couldn’t put one in Viggo’s sleeping bag.

By the time Orlando had made it back to the small clearing, he was mostly dry, and mostly not cold, since the trees seemed to have decided to stop emptying their leaves onto the forest floor, and there was nothing like the panic induced by slime mould between the toes to warm you up.

The tent was set up, fly sheet extending over the front, and Viggo was sitting cross-legged and naked under the annexe, spirit stove in front of him, something steaming invitingly on top of the stove. Orlando’s boots were there, lined up beside Viggo’s, beside the tent.

Viggo looked up and made a croaking noise, like an anaemic frog, and Orlando stopped the stream of invective he’d been working on. Viggo had a point: seven frogs loose in his car probably was equivalent to making Orlando walk for miles barefoot through a rainforest.

“Truce,” Orlando said, and he sat down on the groundsheet beside Viggo and took the cup of tea that Viggo handed him.

 

They ate ramen noodles and biltong when it became dark, then sultanas. Orlando took out the book he’d brought with him, and pulled his army jumper on and settled down with his torch to read. It had begun to rain again, and Viggo took off the jeans and shirt he’d eventually put on, then wandered off into the forest wearing nothing except boots and socks.

Orlando didn’t ask why.

 

The cycads beside the tent rattled against the nylon wetly, and Orlando looked up and asked, “Mission accomplished?”

Viggo was soaked, his hair plastered to his face, water streaming down him, when Orlando turned the torch on him as he crouched down and crawled under the fly sheet. “You should have come with me; the forest is amazing at night.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Orlando said. “Want me to light the stove?”

 

Orlando made them both tea while Viggo shook the worst of the water off himself, took off his boots and socks, and pulled on a jumper from his pack. Orlando turned off the torch, and they sat in darkness, listening to the forest drip and leak and pour around them.

The mug of tea was warm in Orlando’s hands and he was miles away when Viggo spoke.

“What are you feeling?” Viggo asked.

“Not cold and wet,” Orlando said. “Kind of sad and happy and tired and floating. What about you?”

Viggo’s arm slid around Orlando’s shoulder and when Orlando cuddled up against Viggo, he could smell mildew and rain and sweat and residual cigarette smoke. “Yeah, sad this is nearly over. Exhilarated by the night. Mostly still cold and wet. Scratched in places, and I itch from insect bites.”

“Sorry about the seven frogs,” Orlando said. “It was all ’Lij’s fault of course.”

“Seven?” Viggo said. “Oh, fuck. I only found six.”

When Orlando lifted his head to apologise again, he caught the quick gleam of Viggo’s smile, then Viggo’s mouth was pressed against his.

In all of Orlando’s fantasies, Viggo’s mouth was passionate and demanding, but now they were kissing, and it was gentle and coaxing, brushing against Orlando’s lips over and over as Viggo murmured between kisses.

“Please,” he whispered. “Just once… then we can be friends again…. before we leave…”

“Yes,” Orlando said, winding his arms around Viggo’s neck, touching wet hair as damp beard rubbed against his chin, then his neck.

Then Viggo kissed him thoroughly, tasting of salted meat and rain, leaving Orlando breathless and painfully aroused, kissing him back urgently, sliding his hand up Viggo’s back under his jumper as Viggo lowered him back onto the groundsheet.

He’d seen Viggo hard before, early-morning hard and making his way to the bathroom without bothering with a robe, and the sight had fuelled Orlando’s wanking for months. But there was a world of difference between illicit glimpses of a mostly asleep Viggo, and having a very much awake Viggo lowering himself over Orlando, rock-hard cock pressing against Orlando’s thigh.

“Oh, fuck, that hurts,” Viggo said against Orlando’s ear, and Orlando fumbled between them, finding the fly of his own jeans and undoing it quickly, then wriggling his jeans down.

Viggo lifted himself up for a moment, giving Orlando some elbow-room, then he lowered himself back down so his cock pressed cold and clammy against Orlando’s hip and thigh. The groan he gave as he pressed his freezing-cold body against Orlando’s relatively warm one made Orlando arch up harder beneath him.

Viggo swore in Danish, then said, “Fuck, I’ll just come now, if that’s OK with you?”

“That good, huh?” Orlando asked, chuckling, and he hugged Viggo tightly. “Think we should move this into a sleeping bag?” he asked, running a hand over Viggo’s icy-cold arse.

“Depends,” Viggo said, and his voice sounded strained. “You gonna keep fondling my ass if we do?”

“Yeah,” Orlando said against Viggo’s ear as he pressed his fingers against the crack of Viggo’s arse. “I can promise that.”

 

In an ideal world, their sleeping bags would have zipped together, but a torchlight inspection revealed that they didn’t, so Orlando pulled his jumper and T-shirt off and squirmed his way into Viggo’s sleeping bag as best he could.

Viggo was cold everywhere that Orlando touched him--cold arse, cold thighs, cold arms and chest--but his mouth was warm, seeking out Orlando’s in intoxicating kisses. His icy fingers, callused and roughened, stroked Orlando’s back, pushing their bodies closer and closer together, making Orlando whimper.

“Warming up?” Orlando asked, nuzzling against Viggo’s neck, tasting grit and Viggo’s own scent, strong and potent.

“The bits of me that aren’t freezing are burning,” Viggo said against Orlando’s ear. “And I don’t have anything with me.”

“Me either,” Orlando said.

Viggo stilled, half-resting over Orlando, cold fingers between Orlando’s thighs, and it was just as dark when Orlando opened his eyes as when they were closed.

“This is you and me,” Orlando said. “Not some pointless fuck with some pointless guy from the Sovereign.”

“You and me,” Viggo said softly, and his fingers found Orlando’s arse, rough skin and jagged nails dragging over the sensitive skin, and Orlando went crazy, flailing around inside the tight cocoon of the sleeping bag, yelling and clutching at Viggo.

He was distantly aware that Viggo was swearing steadily under his breath, quiet curses that might actually be instructions or promises, but he didn’t fucking care. This was his secret, the way being touched like that made him feel. It was beyond sex, so intense it wiped his mind and felt like Viggo’s fingers were plugged directly into the pleasure centre of his brain, and this was why he didn’t let strangers do it to him.

But this was no stranger, this was Viggo, whispering promises and rubbing his fingertips across Orlando’s arse, groaning and grinding against him, and Orlando gasped, “Fuck, please.”

It was raining again, droplets thudding into the nylon of the tent, and a bird nearby was making strange tooting noises. There was a trilled whistle outside the tent that Orlando was damn sure was a frog, but he had no intention of pointing this out to Viggo, not when he was trying to avoid thumping Viggo accidentally with his elbows as he rolled over in the tight sleeping bag.

It wasn’t subtle, and it wasn’t sophisticated, and Orlando yelled as the head of Viggo’s cock eased into him. “Shut up,” Viggo growled, then started making a fair racket himself as his cock slid slowly into Orlando.

Fuck,” he moaned. “Hot… Fuck, so tight…”

“That’d be the no-lube part,” Orlando said through gritted teeth, then his body let go all of a sudden and stopped fighting the feeling of being penetrated, and they both groaned loudly.

There was grit in the sleeping bag, something ripped as Orlando’s legs kicked out, looking for leverage, and Viggo’s breath was harsh in Orlando’s ear. “You OK?” Viggo asked.

“Gnnngh,” Orlando said; then Viggo’s icy-cold hand wrapped around his cock and it all became irrelevant.

Maybe Viggo was always a gentle lover, maybe he moved that slowly and carefully inside everyone he fucked, but Orlando hoped not. He wanted the whispers and moans and slow sweet slide into oblivion to be just for him, just for always…

The first time he felt Viggo’s come inside him, hot and slippery and perfect, he lost his heart as well as his mind.

After Viggo’s fingers had coaxed sharp slivers of orgasm from Orlando’s body, Orlando rolled over, this time thwacking Viggo solidly with a sex-clumsy elbow before he crawled onto Viggo’s chest.

Viggo stroked his back and scalp, petted his Mohawk, brushed over his neck, traced the bumps of his spine.

Orlando felt so raw and full, and Viggo’s chest hair crinkled against his face, and his breathing was slow and deep.

“I don’t want to let go,” he whispered. “Not when we go back tomorrow.”

“Me either,” Viggo said, and his arms tightened around Orlando.

 

“Gotta piss,” Viggo said, and Orlando struggled awake.

“’K,” he said sleepily and when Viggo clambered out of the sleeping bag, there was a draught of cold air. The sleeping bag smelt of sex, sweat and come and arse, an olfactory reminder of the night before, just in case Orlando’s body had forgotten, and Orlando crawled out of the bag and the tent.

The sun was slanting into the clearing from up the valley, and every tree fern, cycad, leaf, frond and spike was covered in silver droplets, reflecting prisms of light that danced and glistened.

Viggo’s breath was a cloud of condensation when he walked back into the clearing, a look of deep contentment on his face. He squatted down under the annexe and held out his hand to Orlando.

“I’ve brought you a snail,” he said.


End file.
